do not go gentle (into that good night)
by V.reve
Summary: Ethel has a secret, and Tadashi will never know. SpyAU. Part 1 of Follow Me to Midnight series. Late submission for Day 1 of Tomadashi week. Prompt: goodbye.


_Once upon a time, a mother told her daughter, a young emperor fell in love with a princess who came from a dangerous land far, far away, seeking safety. For all the darkness that enshrouded her, he saw a pure soul seeking well of the world. Upon her agreement, he took her as his wife. Many people in his kingdom questioned the safety of their lord with such a woman of questionable background, but she had no will to hurt him, only to bask in the protection he offered behind the thick palace walls. Many seasons passed and with each passing cherry blossom bloom, each rising sun, he made her feel more and more secure, so that the fear of threat faded into a forgotten dream. Then one day she realized, he had warmed her heart._

"_So did she fall in love with him?" her little child asked._

_The mother gave her a watery smile, eyes dancing up to the bare ceiling of the homeless shelter room, where mold stains and cobwebs littered the dark corners. It was a far cry from the life she and her daughter had once lived—she feared it was the only life her daughter would ever get to know. "Perhaps, but I don't think he ever had a chance to know."_

"_Why?" The woman could tell that her child did not like the tone of this story and wanted her to create a happy ending, where the good guys prevailed and all that was bad disappeared for good._

_A happily ever after that included coming home, and finding herself in the arms of the man she loved. Where her daughter was happily tucked in bed with the little chemistry and physics books her husband was only too delighted to buy. _

"_Because," the mother answered, hardening herself for her child, "when you seek protection as that woman did, you're running away from something. And no matter where you go, someone is bound to get hurt."_

* * *

**[24:00:00:00]**

**(tick)**

She wakes to fingertips dancing on her hip and lingering dreams of red and white colored Aston Martins.

"Ugh," she mumbles and rolls over. It's too early for this. A set of lips press softly to the rise of her breast. "Mhmm." She opens her eyes to see two dark ones grinning mischievously at her own. "You sure are persistent."

He leans back, kneeling beside her on the bed. His smile reaches his eyes. "Well, it helps get the job done."

Sunlight streams in through the curtains and bathes his hair in a golden glow. He looks like the Adonis statue she once stole, but wasn't supposed to touch.

Laughing, she sits up to press a kiss to his lips. And quickly he responds, a hand resting at the nape of her neck, another coming around her waist to pull her in closer. By the time she's keeping track of the situation again, several long moments have passed. She's panting on top of him, and his face reads 'cheerfully sated.'

Ethel groans, eyes looking up at the ceiling, "You jerk, you're putting my plans behind."

"Sorry." He grins, looking none to apologetic at all. "So do I get to stay for breakfast this time?"

Realizing that she's not going to be able to complete her self-scheduled task for today, she shrugs, clambering off of him to hand him the room phone, "Call the kitchen and tell them what food we want."

**[21:00:00:00]**

This morning, when he wakes up, it is to the feel of a cool sheet draped across his legs and bare torso.

Shifting, he moves himself to lean against the headboard. His body is satisfyingly weary if he's being honest, leaves him with a modest tinge of masculine pride. The furniture in the room is askew. Everything looks worse for wear, and the sheets tangled around the bed suggest that they've been through better days. A wry smile dances on his mouth.

A small part of him wants to get up and see if she's in the bathroom, waiting for him.

But he knows he won't see her there.

So it's to his complete surprise, to realize that a hotel breakfast sits, still warm, on the nightstand. A note rests besides it.

_My place next time?_

**[20:00:00:00]**

She won't be one to easily admit, but she loves the way Agent Hamada looks at her. His eyes say he is wholly entranced by her enigma.

It scares her that he knows her so well.

It comforts her that he really knows nothing about her at all.

Yet, even if she gets to call the shots more often than not in this careful game they play, she can't stand the fact that he could see her dealing with something so plebian as a queasy stomach after a night of fantastic sex. If he were to find her and stay, when she's wrapped around a toilet, all sweaty and warped of her typical image, then the situation is too intimate and domestic. She can't have that.

So like all her best ideas, she flees, leaving him to a chillier wake up in the morning, to find somewhere else to pass her minor bout of illness.

**[18:00:00:00]**

"So friends?"

"I think you mean acquaintances. Friends wouldn't roll over very well in our lines of work."

An eye roll.

"With benefits."

She doesn't remember if anything else is said as his lips carefully trace each part of her body.

**[14:00:00:00]**

Ethel knows that someday she's going to regret going for the guy with his ridiculously customized red and white sports cars and criminally smooth smile, but when he holds her the way he does, deep into the night like he'll never let her go, ignorant of the worlds she left behind, and aware of the life she lives, she can almost imagine wanting to spend the rest of the world with him.

**[09:00:00:00]**

Tonight, Tadashi has a shadow. A sleek, pain-in-the-ass, and obviously hot shadow. And he desperately needs to find a way to avoid her.

Swirling his bourbon in its glass, he sighs, trying to ignore her latest appearance on his job. He always hates when their interests align. This is an undercover job with the UN. It's supposed to be an easy job, recover the crown jewels before the "owner" presents them, in and out in no time. But he's just cracking the code to the outer security doors of the vault, when she waltzes by, a used backpack slung over her shoulder.

"Tadashi," she greets with an amused smirk, her game face is on. "Nice to see you again. When was it last? Mexico City? The brown hair really just isn't you."

He gives her an irritated glare. "Vancouver. And you know I can't just walk around with the same look."

She shrugs, "Not that it helps you much."

He glares and she strides over.

"Maybe next time babe," she says with a wink. Unexpectedly she leans forward, grabbing him by his jacket lapels and pulls him down, locking her lips with his, urging him to react to her kiss. Once he does, she pulls away after a few more moments, pulls a vial out of her pocket and takes it in in one gulp.

"What did you do?" Suspicion mars his feautures.

"I'd say you have about six minutes to get to Baymax and call for help before the sedative kicks in."

"The hell! Again! Can't you use something else?"

"Can't have you following my tracks," she shrugs in a what-can-you-do sort of way. "And it's about time you started getting smart."

Tadashi swears.

**(tick)**

As Tadashi runs up his own course to safety, Ethel saunters by in the shadows. She's hit by the suddenly pungent smell of sautéing meat and has to hold back a gag. It's too much like the dinner she tried to have today that she couldn't hold down. There was something all wrong about the meat, that even now she can't imagine trying to force herself to put it down.

**(tick)**

Tadashi Hamada was top of his game before Ethel came along. He was the oldest son to succeed _the _legendary Akira and Emily Hamada, top spies for the even more top secret organization C.A.T. It seemed like no one could stop him.

But when she came in, flipping his wig off in the middle of a mission with the shake of her hand, and knocking him out with the taste of her lips, he _knew_ that everything was about to change.

**[04:00:00:00]**

The third time she feels nauseous over the course of two weeks, Ethel's not sure if it is what she thinks it. It's too spaced out to be sure, but close enough to be more than coincidental. There's only so many incidences she can happen to have spoiled food in a short time frame.

**(tick)**

It might be time she visits the pharmacy.

**[02:00:00:00]**

She wakes up to the sounds of piano scales echoing from the living room of the hotel suite.

Ethel groans, glancing at the clock. It's five o'clock in the morning. Much too early for this. Ruffling her currently all black hair, she slowly pads out to track the source of sound.

Tadashi is sitting haphazardly on the piano bench besides the showy grand that sets off the luxurious room. He's wearing nothing but a thin white t-shirt and boxers, fingering the keys of the piano with a childlike curiosity. He looks up, a gentle smile warming over the smooth contours of his face.

For a moment she can't breathe.

"You gonna play me a song Piano Man?" she smirks, leaning against the doorframe, aware that her voice lingers between tired and something she can't quite decipher this early in the morning.

Tadashi laughs. His eyes crinkle in a way she finds terribly endearing. And it will take more than a gun to the head to make her admit it, but it's the most adorable thing she's ever seen.

"Should I be surprised you haven't snuck out the window yet?" he teases.

Ethel settles herself beside him, her right leg brushing against his.

"Probably," she chuckles, because it's true, and they both know it. They sit together in a companionable silence, before Tadashi attempts the piano again.

"Mom and Dad used to always say they'd teach me to play this," he admits, a slight nostalgic grin flitting across his face.

Ethel watches him with an unreadable expression, mind flying back to a time and secret kept locked away. Unconsciously, her hands gently move to cover his. Tadashi stares at her in surprise as she gently adjusts his hands before instructing him how to play a basic chord.

The piano make a simple, melodic sound.

**(tick)**

He can't do this anymore. He'd not going to play this game anymore and pretend that this doesn't affect him. When he's himself, without the guise of a mission or training your recruits, he's no good at hiding his feelings. When he's playing the default role of Tadashi, he wears his heart on his sleeve, no matter how dangerous it is. That's just how Tadashi Hamada is. He wonders whether she'll take it or leave it.

"Ethel…"

Ethel is taken aback by the sincerity in his eyes.

"I think I've fallen in love with you."

**(tock)**

**[01:00:00:00]**

"_Tadashi run faster!_" Honey Lemon is screaming in his ear.

**[00:59:59:59]**

Tadashi is racing along the corridor of the underwater plant. Fred, his partner on this mission, is leading ahead of him, his memory of a few second exposure to the plant's layout is uncanny and when the clock is racing, he's all Tadashi has to rely on.

Hallways narrow and lights dim until he stops behind Fred at a simple heavy metal door.

"Level Three, Wing One entrance," Fred informs his assigned member of the Q division, who Tadashi knows by his nickname Wasabi, "Door code now."

For a few tense moments, the two agents are silent, listening to Wasabi, with the aid of Tadashi's own quartermaster, Honey Lemon, attempt to crack the code.

After a few swears, Wasabi rattles it off to Fred who quickly punches it in.

Now, only a few steps close to victory, Tadashi and Fred rush into the emergency pod platform.

**(tick) **

Only to find that while two single-person pods are left, one has evidently been purposely mauled so that its latches are stuck to the exterior structure of the underwater command center.

Fred and Tadashi share a look. He can see the sadness and regret looming in his friend's eyes.

"Well this is it, I guess, man," Fred replies in a nonchalant way, "give my parents my best would you."

On the other side of the line, Tadashi can hear Honey Lemon and Wasabi realizing what he and Fred already know. Only one of them is making it out alive.

**(tock)**

"No," he interjects. "I'm not leaving without you."

Fred gives him a pained look, before plastering a smile on his face. "You're our best Hamada, I can't let the Hamada dynasty die on your shoulders."

Tadashi smiles, and pulls his friend in for a hug. "Don't forget everything you've done for the 'Line of Lee,'" he jokes, referring to training when he and Fred bonded over the family reputations they had yet to fill.

"Thanks, man," Fred hugs him tightly.

"Anytime," Tadashi responds. With his friend close enough, he places a few, carefully planned jabs into Fred's pressure point along his neck, "But if I can't leave with you, you're going to have to go alone."

**[00:00:09:41]**

Across the Pacific and on the other side of the old mainland, Ethel gets up from her seat. She brews herself jasmine tea, careful to make it the way she remembers her mother doing so long ago. With careful precision, she washes the fresh, delicate flowers before placing them in the hot tea pot.

The pregnancy tests, already set up, sit idly by on the opposite side of the kitchen, taunting her with the answer to her future. She dares not look at them, for the fear that either response will completely upset her.

With each minute that the flowers steep, her eyes catch on the innocent looking sticks, before anger fills her and she wants to hit Tadashi, scream at herself, and fuck up whatever entity decided to put her in this precarious position.

**(tick)**

Another part of her wants her mother: wants her mother alive and holding her the way she used to.

**(tock)**

Loneliness is always most poignant when you need someone the most.

**[00:00:03:58]**

"Sorry," Tadashi apologizes, "but only of us could go up and you know Fred wasn't going to let it be anyone but me. I needed to return the favor.

"Plus, I owed him five dollars."

Honey releases a choked laugh into his ear piece.

"_Ay dios mio_, you little piece of—"

"_Tadashi, honey_!" his Aunt's voice signs onto his channel. She doesn't even bother to use the formal 'Agent Hamada' right now. "Can you hear me?!"

"Hey Aunt Cass," he answers, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.

"Oh baby," his Aunt, head of C.A.T. apparently has already gotten the memo and is on the verge of tears. "I'm so, so sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"But I never wanted you to die."

"I know," he says simply.

"I should have never let you join," she adds, voice slowing as the situation sets in deeper.

"It's okay," he says consolingly, but acting calm is getting harder with each creak and groan as the metal structure gives into the ocean's pressure, a fissure is bound to open soon. "I knew what I was getting into when I signed."

"I just love you so much," she whispers. "After your parents…you and Hiro have been my world."

"I know. I love you, too," it's too bad she can't see his smile because he cares for her that much. "You've been the best," he confides. "Don't let Hiro touch Baymax until he's at least eighteen."

He Aunt gives a weak laugh and in that moment Tadashi makes a choice.

"I'm turning my mic off now, I'll stay on the line, but when this thing collapses, I don't want you two to have to listen. Tell Fred bye for me."

**(tick)**

"Tadashi," his Aunt calls out.

His side is dead.

**(tock)**

"Tadashi," Honey Lemon, hands gripping the cold metal ledge of the computer in front of her.

He does not respond.

Wasabi is crying besides her, so Honey Lemon turns away from the large computer screen that displays logistics and mission details and stands behind her large friend. She wraps her arms around him, words are lost on her now.

**[00:01:35:16]**

Once several minutes have passed, Ethel picks the flowers from the tea, delicately dumping them in the trash, and adding a teaspoon of honey for flavor. After taking a sip, she comes to a conclusion.

**[00:00:59:19]**

In the silence that now dwells from his side of the line, Honey Lemon and Aunt Cass are quiet. Until suddenly, Honey Lemon begins to hum an old ballad recalling a time when his hometown once existed on the other side of the Pacific.

In his memory, he can hear the words playing across his mind.

_If you're going to San Francisco,  
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.  
If you're going to San Francisco,  
You're going to meet some gentle people there._

Flashes of his parents before they died echo in his sight, until suddenly his memories rest on Ethel and the last image he has of her, rushing out of his hotel room, as he silently watched her flee his declaration.

In an ironic way, the silence and seclusion comfort him now as he breaks down. Thank god his friends and Aunt will never know the terror building inside of him as he prepares to die.

**[00:00:00:19]**

Placing her cup firmly on the counter, Ethel walks across the kitchen. She grabs each stick by its handle. Taking a deep breath, she turns them over.

**[00:00:00:12]**

"Tadashi!" a wrecked voice comes across his communicator. In the background, Honey Lemon releases a startled gasp.

Eyes flashing open Tadashi sits up and pulls his communicator controller out, scrambling for the unmute button.

"_Hiro?!_"

Before he can locate where to press, the underwater headquarters shake, causing Tadashi to violently rock forward, losing his balance and smashing his head into an offending protrusion from the wall.

Lying on the cold metal floor, his vision fades to white. Tadashi hears his brother's hysterical screams, but takes it in neutrally, feeling and logic absent with his fading consciousness.

**[00:00:00:06]**

And for the first time in more than ten years, Leiko Tanaka cries.

Happiness is a subjective thing, and she is not sure how she is supposed to feel.

**[00:00:00:01]**

_If I had another chance, I would have spent it with you._

**[00:00:00:00]**

* * *

**do not go gentle into that goodnight**

**...**

**rage, rage against the dying of the light**

* * *

**A/N: **My late submission for Day 1 of Tomadashi week. Before the event had even come into culmination, I had a plan in mind to write a one-shot Spy AU with Gogo and Tadashi. Once I saw the prompts, my ideas exponentially increased, such that this story serves as just a bare prequel for what is to come. I hope you'll stick around. :)

And as always, I gladly accept feedback and well-founded critique. (As well as any beta suggestions if anyone knows a person who does a very good job).


End file.
